Technical Field
Exemplary aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to an image forming apparatus, such as a copier, a facsimile machine, a printer, or a multi-functional system including a combination thereof.
Related Art
In an image forming apparatus that employs an electrophotographic method, a belt-shaped image bearer bearing an image contacts a transfer device opposed to the image bearer to form a transfer nip as a transfer portion, thereby transferring the image onto a recording sheet in the transfer nip. The electrical resistance is high at the leading end portion of the recording sheet passing through the transfer portion because no toner image is transferred onto the leading end portion, unlike at an image portion where the toner image is transferred. Accordingly, the electrical resistance significantly changes while the recording sheets passes the transfer nip. This leads to an insufficient amount of the transfer bias to transfer the toner image onto the leading end portion of the image portion on the recording sheet. Hence, a configuration is proposed, in which a target output value of the transfer bias when it rises is greater than a target output value of the transfer bias applied to the image portion, to prevent a reduction in density on the leading end side of the image portion.